Earlier this week, Sony confirmed that its upcoming PS Vita portable console would made its world debut in Japan on December 17. The console will be released in the US and Europe sometime later in 2012. But die hard gamers who want to get their hands on the PS Vita a bit earlier can do so and not have to worry about having US or European PS Vita games be unplayable when they are eventually released. 1Up.com reports that Sony Computer Entertainment's president of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, confirmed on his Twitter page that the PS Vita will be region free.

That means that US and European citizens can spend a lot of money and purchase a Japanese version of the PS Vita in a few months. Later, when local games for the console are released for those regions, owners of the imported Japanese PS Vita console can play those games with no problems. It also means that when US and European versions of the PS Vita are finally released they will also be able to play all those Japanese PS Vita games that will likely never be translated and published in those countries.

As we reported earlier this week, pricing for the WiFi only version of the PS Vita in Japan will be 24,980 yen while the WiFi-3G version will have a price of 29,980 yen. When the PS Vita is released here in the US, pricing for the WiFi only version will be $249 while the WiFi-3G version will have a price of $299.